Altice Arena
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North side view of the arena in 2014
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| Former names | Pavilhão da Utopia (1998) Pavilhão Atlântico (1998–2013) MEO Arena (2013–2017) |
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| Location | Rossio dos Olivais, 1990-231 Lisbon, Portugal |
| Coordinates | 38°46′6.79″N 9°5′38.45″W / 38.7685528°N 9.0940139°W |
| Public transit |
Gare do Oriente (Comboios de Portugal) Linha Vermelha at Oriente (Lisbon Metro) |
| Owner | Arena Atlântico S.A. |
| Operator | Arena Atlântico S.A. |
| Capacity | 20,000 |
| Construction | |
| Built | 1996–1998 |
| Opened | 1998 |
| Construction cost | € 55 million |
| Architect | Regino Cruz (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) |
| Website | |
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Altice Arena (originally, and still popularly referred to as Pavilhão Atlântico and later MEO Arena) is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Lisbon, Portugal. The arena is among the largest indoor arenas in the European Union and the largest in Portugal with a capacity of 20,000 people and was built in 1998 for Expo '98. It was named after its main sponsor, MEO from 2013 until October 2017.
Plans to build a multipurpose arena in Lisbon date back to the first discussions of the Expo '98 Master Plan. At the time, the city lacked a versatile facility able to accommodate concerts, congresses and sporting events of big scope. The existing structures, both in Lisbon and in Portugal alike, either had limited capacity (up to 4,000 people), or were difficult to adapt to non-conventional events, such as world class indoor sports competitions. Another shortcoming of existing venues was the lack of technical infrastructure deemed necessary to host modern concerts, musicals and to allow for proper live TV coverage.
The country needed an arena to fill the existing gap between smaller indoor halls, like the Lisbon Coliseum, and open-air stadia. As a consequence, Portugal would not host games of important indoor sports championships and no major concerts would take place in the country in periods of cold and rainy weather.
The decision to build the Pavilhão Atlântico within the masterplan of Expo 98 allowed the arena to have a catchment area well beyond the city of Lisbon. Being a short distance from Gare do Oriente and several major highway interchanges, allows the arena to draw spectators from all over the country.
On July 2012, the arena was sold to Arena Atlântico S.A. for 21,2 million €.
Later, on May 2013, Arena Atlântico S.A. sold the arena naming rights to Portugal Telecom (PT) , that changed the arena name to MEO Arena, because of its brand MEO.
Following the Altice (that bought PT some years earlier) plans to change the brand MEO to Altice, in October 2017 the name of the arena was changed to Altice Arena.
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